The Luzern Photograph

by William Bayer

  I go out for a run to think things through, why Josh lied, and something else Lynx mentioned – that a dominatrix can be a healer who uses corporal pain to defeat the inner psychic pain of her clients.

  I also ask myself again why I care so much about a deceased woman I barely knew. Dr Maude suggested I want to understand Chantal in order to portray her character in a performance piece, that this is the subconscious reason I chose to keep her SM gear when I leased the loft. But I feel something else is going on, something deeper, a strange but real feeling of kinship with Chantal, a feeling that our lives are not just tangentially connected, but are closely and perhaps even mystically linked.

  I’m musing about this, not paying much attention where I’m heading, when suddenly I realize I just ran by a used bookstore on the block behind. Stopping to catch my breath, I consider whether to backtrack and check it out. It would be too weird if it turns out to be the store where Chantal sold her books. But then, I tell myself, perhaps not so weird. It’s fairly close to the Buckley and therefore the most likely place to which Chantal would turn to sell her library to raise cash for her escape.

  My T-shirt’s soaked. I feel the sun beating down, feel it strongly on my forehead. It’s the brilliant hot sun of a sparkling spring afternoon in Oakland, so brilliant it makes the storefront windows and building walls seem to shimmer in the heated air. I look up at the sky. The sun blinds me. I close my eyes and allow the heat to play upon my face. Then I make up my mind, pivot, and stride back to the bookstore.

  A bell tinkles when I enter. It’s cool inside. There’s a special smell too, a library stacks smell, the aroma of dusty old books. At a desk near the door an elderly man with a trimmed white beard is working at a computer. I catch an aroma of whisky as I pass. Ah, a lover of books and fine Scotch. I smile at him, but he doesn’t bother to look up.

  A little further in, a woman in her sixties, white hair compacted into a bun, sits at another desk cataloging books. When I pass near, she looks me up and down taking in my running garb. Then smiling she displays a questing expression.

  ‘Just browsing,’ I tell her.

  She nods and turns back to her work.

  I make my way down a long center aisle lined with bookshelves. In typical used bookstore fashion, the books are organized into sections: ART, MYSTERIES, LITERARY FICTION, GAY STUDIES, RUSSIA, BASEBALL, WORLD WAR II. There are five main aisles. Near the rear it’s necessary to step around shopping bags and boxes filled with books as yet unshelved. Some of the back aisles are nearly blocked. The deeper I penetrate the more chaos I find, including books stacked into precariously balanced piles, some reaching up to the ceiling. There’re corridors back here so narrow I can barely squeeze through. These lead in turn to a rabbit warren of backrooms (JUVENILES, FOREIGN LANGUAGES, TRAVEL, EROTICA), some so stuffed it’s impossible to do anything except stand in the doorways and gaze inside, imagining what treasures lie hidden beneath the literary rubble.

  I make my way back to the front of the shop. White Bun looks up at me with the same questing expression.

  ‘I don’t know if this is the right store,’ I tell her. ‘A friend recently sold her books, and I’m wondering if she sold them here.’

  ‘Can you describe your friend?’ White Bun’s words come out in a whisper.

  ‘She was very beautiful. She had very pale skin and long dark hair. She lived in the Buckley Building.’

  ‘I know the one,’ White Beard breaks in. ‘We bought her library.’ He studies me. ‘You say she was beautiful. Something happen to her?’

  I think a moment how best to put it. ‘She recently passed away,’ I tell him.

  Silence, then White Beard speaks again. ‘Sorry to hear that. She was a very nice young lady. Didn’t haggle. Invited me up to her loft. I looked over her library, offered her a price, and she accepted it. I paid her and sent two of my boys to pack her books and haul them here.’

  ‘Still have them?’

  He laughs. ‘Oh, sure! Haven’t unpacked them. Probably won’t get to them ’til sometime next year.’

  ‘Could I look at them?’

  ‘You interested in buying?’

  ‘I might be. I took over her loft. I remember she had some very interesting books,’ I lie. ‘I thought if I could see them, I might want to buy some back.’

  White Beard and White Bun exchange a look.

  Another crazy – is that what they’re thinking?

  ‘It’s not possible to pull those books out of boxes and spread them out for you. But if you’re serious my wife will show you the boxes, and you can take a peek inside. If you see some you want, we can price them for you. But only if you’re serious.’

  ‘I’m very serious,’ I assure him.

  White Beard nods at White Bun. ‘Why don’t you show the young woman where we put those Buckley Building books.’ He looks sternly at me. ‘Don’t mess them up. They were boxed the way your friend had them organized. Mess them up and I’ll never get them properly shelved.’

  ‘I’ll be very careful,’ I promise.

  White Bun leads me back into the dark recesses of the store, then up a narrow staircase I hadn’t noticed, which leads in turn to a long narrow room, the length of the shop below. At the far end dust-coated windows overlook the street.

  She leads me to a pair of stacks five boxes tall, all marked DESFORGES. ‘You can open the top one and take a look. That should give you a general idea.’

  I nod, open the top box. The first book I see is a biography of Sigmund Freud. I pull it out, open it, notice that passages are highlighted and that there’re marginal notations.

  ‘About half of them are marked up like that. Which is why we couldn’t pay much for them,’ White Bun explains. ‘Our customers don’t expect used books to be pristine, but they prefer to do their own highlighting. Your friend’s books were well studied.’

  I pick up a book from the top box of the second stack, William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. It too is heavily notated. Beneath it I find a biography of Lou Andreas-Salomé, the source of the quote on the archway in my loft. I notice a letter sticking out between pages in the middle.

  ‘Yeah, there’s mail inside some of them. It’s like she used her library as a filing cabinet. We’ve bought other libraries like that.’ She giggles. ‘Once one of our clients found a hundred-dollar bill folded up inside a Bible. He’d paid for the book so he got to keep it.’

  I turn to her. ‘The letters come with the books?’

  ‘Sure. Why not?’

  ‘How will you price them?’

  ‘My husband does the pricing. You seriously interested?’

  ‘If it’s not too expensive I’d like to buy the whole collection,’ I tell her.

  ‘Let’s go downstairs and talk to him.’

  The negotiation goes quickly. I know from what White Beard said that he doesn’t like to haggle. I ask what he paid for Chantal’s library. Pretending to look it up, he tells me he paid six hundred dollars. I figure he probably paid three, but decide to let it go. Pointing out that I barely glanced at the books, I offer him seven hundred if he’ll have the boxes hauled back up to Chantal’s old loft.

  The old man gives me a quizzical look. ‘Off her shelves and down the stairs, then back up the stairs and back onto her shelves. Interesting,’ he says. He ponders my offer. ‘OK, you can have the lot for seven-fifty including delivery. If you tip my boys they’ll shelve them for you too.’

  I meet his eyes. He’s smiling. I turn to look at White Bun. She brings her hand up to her face to conceal her grin.

  I grin back at them. As my father used to say: the best deals are the ones where each side believes he’s gotten the better of the other.

  SEVEN

  Vienna, Austria. March 15, 1913. It’s pouring with rain. When Lou walks into the Café Ronacher, she’s carrying an umbrella. She finds the young man at a larger table than before, sketchbook and pencil set in front of him. The moment she enters he rises swiftly to greet he
r. This time there’s no obsequious fawning. Today he seems a different person, bursting with confidence. She thinks: If I weren’t aware of his insecurities, I’d likely find him repulsive.

  He snaps his finger at the waiter, orders coffees and chocolate tortes for them both.

  ‘You don’t bother to ask what I want?’

  ‘I assumed, based on our last meeting …’ He lowers his eyes. ‘I apologize.’

  ‘Never mind. In your letter you spoke of a willingness to reveal yourself. You used the words “full disclosure”.’ He nods. ‘I’m listening?’

  ‘I am prepared to answer all your questions. In return I ask permission to sketch you while we chat.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t like drawing people. There were no people in your paintings.’

  ‘Occasionally I’m moved to draw a portrait of someone I admire.’ He looks cannily at her. ‘May I?’

  She nods. As they talk he sketches her, looking up at her from time to time, then back down at his sketchbook. He holds it in so only he can see the drawing as it progresses.

  ‘You seem quite confident today,’ she tells him.

  ‘People often say that about me, even when they disagree with what I’m saying. I certainly have my opinions, but I pride myself on being open to a change of mind when someone I respect, such as yourself, offers me a good reason.’

  ‘May I ask you some personal questions?’

  ‘Certainly!’ He is, she sees, eager to accommodate her.

  ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’

  ‘I’ve yet to fall in love, but I do look forward to the experience.’

  ‘Do you think of yourself as bitter or angry?’

  ‘I am well acquainted with those feelings. My application to attend the Academy of Fine Arts was twice rejected. Needless to say that was discouraging.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  He shakes his head as if to say she has no idea. ‘There is no work for me here.’ He continues to sketch her as he speaks. ‘Two years ago I was reduced to carrying suitcases at the station in exchange for tips. I’m currently living in a shelter in the Brigittenau district along with several hundred other unemployed men. So, you see, my daily existence isn’t pleasant.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘In fact, if it weren’t for the meager amounts I’m able to scrounge for my paintings and the paltry allowance I receive from my family, I’d be hungry and destitute. Under such circumstances, Frau Lou, it is difficult not to feel some bitterness.’

  Lou nods kindly to show she understands. Up until now she’s regarded him as an object of curiosity; now for the first time in their acquaintanceship she feels some empathy.

  ‘Do you frequent prostitutes?’

  The young man is taken aback. He looks up from his drawing. ‘This is something I would never discuss with a lady!’

  ‘Perhaps sexuality, which is a normal part of human existence, frightens you?’

  ‘Is that what your esteemed Professor Freud would say?’

  ‘Do you know anything about his work?’

  ‘You mocked me before for my ignorance. So to educate myself and also to please you, I conducted some research.’ He grins. ‘Let me put it this way – I feel the same way about this so-called science you are studying as I do about the so-called art work of Mr Egon Schiele.’

  ‘Contempt?’

  ‘I couldn’t put it better.’

  ‘Tell me about yourself. How do you spend your time?’

  ‘I’ll be happy to. But first may I ask why you’re so curious about me, a man of small consequence compared to the many famous people in your exalted circle?’

  She ignores his sarcasm. ‘Like many writers I like to see the world through others’ eyes. When a young man follows me on the street and then writes me admiring letters, of course I’m curious to know who he is.’

  He resumes sketching as he describes his life. ‘Most mornings I work on my painting. I go into an old part of the city, sketch scenes, then return to the Mannerheim shelter, where I have a little corner where I can work. Here I refine my sketches and color them in. The other men there leave me alone. I think I frighten them a bit … which is fine. I don’t like being disturbed.’ He pauses. ‘I also spend a good deal of time reading, philosophy mostly. The writing of your old friend Friedrich Nietzsche in particular. It doesn’t bother me that in person he may have been coarse and disagreeable. It’s his ideas I care about. There are many levels in his writing, and even when I believe I grasp what he’s saying, I’ll reread the passage and understand it in an entirely new way.’

  He glances at her to be certain she’s listening closely.

  ‘In the evening, I like to walk, explore the city, discover its dark corners. In daylight, scouting scenes for my sketches, I’m struck by architecture and angles of viewing that will result in strong compositions. But at night I search for something else. I’m not sure I can explain it.’

  ‘Please try.’

  ‘I find the city morbid and gloomy at night. I’m attracted to that.’

  ‘Some call Vienna at night a “dream city”,’ Lou tells him. ‘My friend Arthur Schnitzler and other writers see it that way.’

  ‘For me it has been more like a nightmare.’ The young man grins. ‘At night I follow streets guided only by instinct. “Should I turn here … or continue on?” I’ll ask myself. And then I’ll take the turn or not depending on my mood. Because in the end it doesn’t matter which street I take or where I end up so long as it’s someplace new and interesting. I like to find my way into unfamiliar neighborhoods. Then I’ll gaze at the people on the streets or sitting in cafés and restaurants. I’ll peer up into lit windows where I might see a young woman moving about from room to room, a family at dinner, perhaps an elderly man sitting alone smoking a pipe, or a young couple having an argument. Sometimes, when I hear someone practicing a musical instrument, I’ll stand still below on the street and strain to listen.’

  He pauses, meets her eyes. ‘I love music, so sometimes I attend the Imperial Opera, but only when Wagner is being performed. Then I’ll purchase a space in the standing-room area beneath the royal box and revel in the music. After the opera is finished, while others, regular box-holders and elegant men and women such as yourself, step into automobiles or carriages and go off to luxurious restaurants, I’ll stand in the shadows watching, observing, making up stories about those people, who they are, what they’re like, how they talk and think.

  ‘After the audience has dispersed I often linger at the stage door with other opera-lovers waiting for the singers to come out. When the great ones finally emerge (and I’m speaking now of such as Anna von Mildenburg), I never push myself toward them as others do, the ones who hold out their programs begging for autographs. I simply watch them, study them, noting how different they seem from the way they appeared on stage – not so big and powerful, but still rich and sleek, reveling in the triumph of their performances. Sometimes, if a performance has particularly excited me, I might join in the applause outside the stage door. Sometimes one of them, perhaps the orchestra conductor or a great soprano such as Lucy Weidt, will catch my eye, there will be a moment of contact between us, then she will turn and look away. It’s always the other person who breaks eye contact first, never me.’ He stares hard at Lou. She has the impression he’s now sketching her eyes. ‘And though the singer will likely forget my face, I will never forget the look in her eyes, the regard, however momentary, that has passed between us, her understanding that I truly grasp the extent of her talent, and her appreciation for that. And sometimes, strangely, I will also see a glimmer of recognition just before her eyes disengage from mine, as if she sees something in me as well, perhaps something momentous … or simply disturbing.’

  The young man grins. ‘I confess I rather like that feeling. It’s as if there has been an exchange of energy between us, something electric.’

  Lou peers at him. ‘I must tell you – you’re an excellent talker.’

  ‘And you, Frau Lou, are an e
xcellent listener.’ He takes a long deep breath. ‘Earlier you asked me about prostitutes. I refuse to discuss what I may or may not do in that regard, but sometimes late at night, after the opera, I will walk over to Spittelberggasse and look at them perched in their windows trying to lure in customers.’

  ‘Do such women appeal to you?’

  He vigorously shakes his head. ‘They revolt me! And yet I am as curious about human scum as I am about members of all the classes.’ He pauses, looks up at her. ‘May I speak to you about Schiele now?’

  She nods.

  ‘I’ll say this for him, his work gave me nightmares.’ Lou notices the way his eyes burn as he speaks. ‘All those emaciated self-portraits, those strangely twisted malnourished naked bodies – I couldn’t push them out of my mind. I felt he was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t grasp what it was. Perhaps some vision of the future, what he thinks the world may someday become. And those naked women, legs spread – I have to admit that standing before them I felt embarrassed. The postures, so strange, other-worldly. The eyes, burning, staring out at me. And those cadaverous men, like meat hanging on hooks in a slaughterhouse. It’s a frightening vision. Nothing ennobling in it. As I said, a nightmare.’ He peers at her. ‘You’re smiling.’

  ‘I am, because what you’ve described is exactly what I believe Schiele intended. That his work gave you nightmares speaks to the power of his art. He is showing you his world, the world of his dreams. He looks deeply inside himself and fearlessly paints what he finds there.’

  ‘It’s a dark vision.’

  ‘I believe there is darkness within us all. When we deny the darkness it eats away at us, but when we own up to it, expose it as Schiele does, we feel relieved. The fact that you found his paintings nearly unbearable to look at tells me he has reached you.’ She catches his eye. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘I’ll soon turn twenty-four.’

  ‘I believe Schiele’s the same age.’